Guilt
by hewhoistomriddle
Summary: AU. If Snape died before Lily. oneshot.


Silly silly idea that kept bouncing around in my head. Just wanted to see what would happen if Snape had been the one who died. I hope Lily feels just as guilty as canon-Snape. Lily' kinda OOC here.

Disclaimer: not mine.

Spoilers: TDH

XI.

Harry's very aware that he's disappointed several times.

He disappointed her when he became the youngest seeker in a century.

He disappointed her when they found out he was rubbish at potions.

He disappointed her when he became a Gryffindor.

He thinks he knows why now.

"_You'd wanted me to be like him."_

VII.

"_But we're going!" he said, unable to suppress the exhilaration in his voice. "This is it! We're off to Hogwarts!"_

"You'd better be in slytherin, Harry." Lily said, pointedly ignoring James' pained expression. "It's the best house there is."

VI.

"_The Boy-who-lived_."

Harry didn't know it was Neville Longbottom until someone, he forgot whom exactly, told him. After all, the shy, round-faced boy didn't really look like the kind of hero people fantasize about.

When he'd asked his mother about it, she'd gone pale-faced and angry, like she all too often did. It was difficult to talk to her about the things which happened years ago, difficult to talk to her about anything really.

So he was quite surprised when she kept her voice even enough to tell him a story about monsters and heroes. And stupid-damsels-in-distress-who-couldn't-tell-which-was-which.

V.

"_Excellent potioneers, the two of them."_

Dumbledore offered her the position, very carefully threaded between his amusing rhetoric and wise counsel. She considered it very carefully before she accepted.

It was difficult, working in the same dungeons, mere rooms away from their old classroom, teaching the subject the two of them had dominated together. It was particularly painful whenever she saw students who wrote in their books that she forbid it or whenever someone asked the same questions he used to ask. Students quickly became wary of asking her anything.

Sometimes, on a whim, she would ask students impossible questions ("What's a bezoar?", she'd ask a first year) and take points off because _he_ would've been able to answer them.

IV.

"_I'm just trying to show you they're not as wonderful as everyone seems to_

_think they are."_

They didn't quite last long after that. They tried, tried very hard to make it work.

But the hurt Lily harbored and James could not understand grew far too large.

Besides, it was James who drove the final damning stake into their friendship, and Lily think she could not live with him after that.

Living with herself is bad enough.

III.

"_I wish. . . I wish I were dead. . . "_

It was Dumbledore who told them, his face somber and remorseful.

James said nothing, the shock of Peter's betrayal not allowing room for anything else in his mind. Lily, however, went crazy.

"Get away from me! Just get away from me!" Lily Potter fought furiously as her husband tried to calm her down. She was sobbing hysterically and lashing at everything in sight.

James was crying as well and Lily got angrier at him for it.

"Get away from me! Leave me alone!" She sobbed at him one last time before sinking to the floor. _Severus…Sev…gone…dead….died to save her…_

Lily Potter wanted to die as well.

II.

"_Then you should have died! Died, rather than betray your friends…"_

Two Avada Kedavra's sailed through the air, not more than a few seconds apart.

The first killed Peter Pettigrew. As soon as the rat took off his mask, Severus Snape knew what he'd intended to do. Without hesitation, he uttered the spell that would forfeit his life…and save Lily's.

The second came from the Dark Lord, who sensed the treachery at once.

I.

"—_to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood,_

_Severus. Why should I be any different?"_

Severus tried to save them –no–_her_, put his own life on the line to warn them about the prophecy, bought them enough time to go into hiding.

Because he _loved_ her, after all this time.


End file.
